When companies tell employees who to vote for

This election season, we’re looking at political polarization — specifically, the role companies play in intensifying or easing political divides — in our “Office Politics” series.

Today, we’re delving into a look at businesses that lean on their employees to vote for the candidates and polices that are in the company’s interest. It’s legal, and companies point out labor unions do it too.  

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and author of the book “Politics at Work.” He spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio about the complications that occur when employers turn up the political pressures on workers.  

David Brancaccio: I know an engineer in aerospace whose employer would send mass emails to the employees telling them how to vote in a way that would be “best for the business.” What does your research show? Was that company an outlier?

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez: What I document in my book “Politics at Work” is that your story is actually part of a larger trend that we’ve seen over time with businesses getting increasingly involved in politics in a whole bunch of ways. And one of those has been thinking about their employees as a potential political base to be mobilized, both in terms of pursuing changes in policy at the state level, at the federal level, as well as elections.

Brancaccio: Yeah, and it may not just be, “Hey, we think you ought to vote this way, but you decide.” It could be, “Hey, why don’t we all help do some political organizing and come together as a group to further a political cause?” I mean, in that case, your employer would know who showed up.

Hertel-Fernandez: That’s exactly right. And research that I’ve done, I found that anywhere from about a quarter to about a third of workers in this country report that they’ve had some kind of political communication with their employers on the job, and that runs the gamut from emails from managers — like in your example, telling them about important legislation or political candidates that are up for election. In other cases, it could include rallies that workers are required to attend on company time. And you can see in that kind of broad sweep that there are forms of communication that workers might find more or less comfortable based on that level of pressure that they’re feeling.

Brancaccio: I mean, how far can they go under law? I mean, they can’t tie your voting behavior to a performance review there. You know, it’s still a secret ballot.

Hertel-Fernandez: We live in a world of at-will employment for most private-sector workers. In that context, I think it’s important to think about the imbalance of power between workers and employers, and how these messages — in some cases — can be coercive or feel like they’re being pressuring toward workers. That said though, coercion is illegal at the federal level, and many states and localities have passed laws that restrict employers abilities to pressure employees to attend events or to participate in partisan activities. And there’s a whole separate set of laws for people who work in the public sector, federal government, state and local government, that often have much tighter restrictions as well. In recent years, a number of states — and Illinois just signed into law — legislation that would prohibit employers from holding mandatory meetings to discuss politics and religion and other similar issues.

Brancaccio: And what is the problem that new law tries to solve?

Hertel-Fernandez: These kinds of meetings — they’re known as captive audience meetings — are often interpreted by workers — and I found this in my research, as well — as being particularly intimidating and coercive. You’re told by your boss, you know, “Show up to this meeting or else, and you have to listen to a political candidate or a boss talk about partisan issues on the job.” And you really don’t feel like you have a choice not to attend or to even ask questions or push back. That’s the kind of issue that these laws are trying to address. They’re also important in the labor context too. It’s a common way that employers try and get their employees to not vote for a union or to not think about forming a union.

Brancaccio: Now, on this issue — you just mentioned labor unions — there are companies that will say, “Hey, labor unions traditionally have mobilized their members in the interests of political causes or asking them to vote in certain directions. Why shouldn’t the companies?”

Hertel-Fernandez: That’s exactly right. And if we look to history, it was the comparison to labor unions that motivated employers to start talking more frequently to their workers. In the 1950s and ’60s, when unions were really at their heyday — you know, representing a quarter of the workforce — employers saw just how effective those unions were at talking about political issues with their members, getting those members out to vote, getting their members to contact lawmakers at the local level, state level and the federal level, and they thought they should get involved too. And business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the Business Industry Political Action Committee, or BIPAC, came up with playbooks that employers could use to really replicate unions’ methods of engaging their workers in politics.

That said, I think there’s some important differences between communications that come from unions and communications that might come from your boss. In the case of unions, often these are democratically elected leaders of these organizations by their members. And as a result, the kind of political positions that unions take will reflect the majority opinion of their members. That’s not necessarily the case for business communications, which are decided by the top brass in a specific company and not necessarily by a democratic majority of workers. That’s one important difference. The other important difference is, at the end of the day, it’s your bosses and managers who cut your check and decide whether or not you keep your job. In present day, unions just don’t have that kind of control in those case as do bosses.

Brancaccio: I want to ask you about the famed Supreme Court decision called Citizens United, which allowed unlimited political contributions by corporations. Does that play into this, with the ability of companies to give lots of money? Does that contribute to the energy of mobilizing workforces?

Hertel-Fernandez: That’s exactly right. And it’s a bit of an unexpected part of the Citizens United decision that, in my research, wasn’t really seen as being an outcome that a lot of people anticipated. So, before Citizens United, companies faced a higher bar to using their own corporate resources to get involved in elections. But Citizens United lifted that restriction and made it easier for companies to use corporate resources. And importantly that counts employee time and activity for electoral ends. And as the Supreme Court made that decision, a number of business organizations began talking to companies and talking to them about the ways that this unlocked further possibilities for them to communicate with their workers more explicitly on partisan grounds.

Brancaccio: Companies also realize this is a can of worms. I mean, we live in a society that, research shows, is becoming increasingly polarized. And if you start talking politics in the workplace at some official level, that can get employees who may not be of like mind riled up.

Hertel-Fernandez: And it’s important to note, as you are mentioning, that companies don’t have a completely free hand here. If they push too hard, their employees may leave. And that’s likely to be a more pressing issue in a tight labor market like the one that we’ve experienced in recent years, where companies are really trying to hold onto their labor. Similarly, it’s likely to be a big issue for employees who are highly mobile — particularly highly specialized workers, workers who have other job opportunities. And so for those reasons, employers may not want to push too hard in partisan ways that go against their workers.

Similarly, employers don’t want to push too hard if they’re afraid of bad press. And in some cases, in my research, I found cases of businesses that were, for instance, sending out really ominous mailers threatening layoffs if particular candidates weren’t elected, and that got a bit of backlash from the public. So that’s another source of pressure against employers mobilizing in very partisan ways.

Brancaccio: I think we both need to acknowledge, though, that there are risks in mobilizing employees, but it’s also an opportunity. I mean, you can imagine a company that, it’s upset about, say, pollution in their community, pushing workers to get involved with environmental causes or perhaps even vote for a pro-environmental local candidate. There’s work to be done in society, and engagement is not always terrible.

Hertel-Fernandez: Oh, absolutely. There are many cases where we might think that the economic interests of workers are really aligned with their employers. When it comes to the kind of policies that shape a workplace, it really matters in some cases, if there’s a federal regulation or not — both for the worker and the employer. And so, in those kinds of cases, I think it’s clear that providing information to workers could be helpful for them to think about their economic conditions and how they connect to politics. I think another way in which it can be helpful is when employers engage in nonpartisan “get out the vote” efforts — by giving their workers time off to vote, by giving them information about how to register to vote or how to volunteer for different campaigns without necessarily endorsing any one of those — that employers, in that way, can be a powerful source of greater civic engagement, not necessarily in one partisan direction.